Serving planks
To ensure that our guests and staff can keep their distance easily, we have developed special long serving planks on which food for two people can be placed. The servers only have to slide the plank into the cabin and don't have to enter the space.
The planks also minimise the walking the staff have to do to serve the greenhouses. They are placed quite far from each other, especially compared to a normal restaurant setting. Because the planks can carry the dinner for two people at once, it saves a lot of walking back and forth.
Later we also further adjusted the planks so they can carry the drinks as well. This way our service is even more efficient and safe, because the glasses don't have to be touched more than needed.
The weather
In addition, we have to account for the weather when serving the food. The staff need to walk 20 to 30 meters outside to serve some of the greenhouses. If it rains, the food gets wet, and if it storms it could blow away. That is why we now use square shaped cloches to protect the food. Cloches didn't exist in this shape, so we created some ourselves using a rectangular planter and a door handle.
To protect our employees during bad weather, we have rain ponchos by the sustainable clothing brand ByBrown.
Lights, ventilation and heating
First, electricity outlets were placed so lights, speakers, fans or heaters could be powered in the greenhouses (it gets hot or cold quickly in the greenhouses). For lighting, we installed dimmable lamps. With a small heater, it gets comfortable quite quickly in the greenhouses, but for extra warmth, we also put blankets in each greenhouse.
Plants don't have hands
Handles
Plants don't have hands, but humans do and presumably, humans will want to leave the greenhouse eventually, so they need to open the doors. This is why we placed handles on the inside of the sliding doors. We did this by glueing them to the glass (you need a big surface on the handle to place the glue, or the handles will fall off), but you could also place it with screws on the aluminium of the doorframe. Enough extra material also needs to be available for the doors, because the sliding system will wear out more quickly due to the doors opening and closing a lot more than with normal use.
Adjustments to the weather
With very sunny weather, it might be a good idea to place some sun-protecting cloth over the greenhouses, or perhaps hang it inside, For colder weather, it is important that there isn't a draft, especially via the bottom, where there can be some space between the aluminium and the actual ground. Thick see-through plastic or some other fitting material can be used to better isolate the space.
Summer in the Serres Séparées - Photo by Abbie Moran for Mediamatic. Taken on 24.06.2020.
